While the Lowndes peerage claim brought in solid information, it did not
include early information of the family or any information on the branches
we are descended from. CocKayne dwelt solely on the holders of the
baronetcy from 1611 to 1836. Regrettably Noble and Betham are not
everyone's favourite researchers these days.

However I had obtained Stuart Raymond's booklet on sources for Essex people
and found in it a reference to the history of the Barrington family by G A
Lowndes, published in the Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society
(TEAS). An internet query to the Essex Library service brought the helpful
response that there was a full set of the TEAS in Colchester library. So to
Colchester I eventually went. While waiting for an opportunity for this
journey, I found an index to all Barrington entries in this series in the
library of the Society of Genealogists.

The reported article was in fact spread over two volumes, I and 2 of the new
Series. It soon became obvious that the master index was totally confused
between the old and the new series of the TEAS and that all Barrington
information was in fact in the new series.

Further it turned out that the author of the history was one William Clayton
and that G Alan Lowndes MA was merely the editor, much as he was also a
senior heir to the Essex Barringtons as all male lines were claimed to
have died out (I cannot reconcile this with the lines shown in Ruvigny's
Clarence volume... More investigation needed.), not to mention also the
owner of a vast collection, some 1000 such, of ancient manuscripts, deeds
and charters that Clayton had worked from.

G A Lowndes was president of the TEAS at the time of the publication of the
report, and for some years afterwards, and as such was part of a serious
scholarly society that was trying to accumulate evidence of the past. So I
believe he would have encouraged Clayton to work only from visible
and contemporary sources. The text certainly gives the impression that that
is what Clayton did and any family tradition that did not have solid backing
he either omitted or said it lacked such. Regrettably, though, he did not
give formal reference to the individual manuscripts much as he quoted a few
verbatim.

Since that time the collection has been split up and it may be impossible to
repeat this research easily. Arthur Searle did his very limited research,
published in 1983, on the correspondence with Lady Joan Barrington,
née Cromwell; but he commented on the different locations the various
manuscripts had got to. More interesting it seems that Searle either did
not see, or deliberately left out, the most expressive letters of that time,
some of which are quoted by Clayton.

Anyhow the upshot is that I think I now have the very best account of the
Barringtons from saxon times to the death of the last male Barrington (my 4
times great-grandfather) in 1836. The most regrettable thing is that there
is no doubt but that the second article gets wrong the list of the daughters
of FitzWilliam Barrington; I suspect Clayton or Lowndes were no longer
relying on contemporary evidence but trying to remember what they had been
told a few years previously, possibly second or third hand.

The major changes to the Barrington descent that I have made following
reading these two articles are:

That the Amicia Mandevill married by Humphrey de Barenton was the
possibly illegitimate daughter of the eventual third earl of Essex rather
than something like the great-granddaughter of the first earl. Accordingly
we can no longer bear the Mandevill arms.

The descent to Tomasin Barrington, heiress, who died around 1470 is
different to that in the 1558 Visitation.

The good news is that I have now typed in Clayton's two articles and put
them on this site. The even better news will be when I have also typed in
the other, shorter articles from the TEAS that are also related to the
Barringtons.